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I believe, Captain, that these are the Twenty-Sixth's boys.
Let me find out; I will give them the countersign.”
“Mike, you fool, what countersign have you?”
“Oh, aisy, Captain;” and he stepped forth and cried out: “Connicticut over the fince.”
The men on both sides broke out into roars of laughter, and all danger of a collision was averted.
Meanwhile Governor Andrew, aided by the two Massachusetts senators, Sumner and Wilson, was doing everything he could to move the President and Secretary Cameron to interfere with my authority to make enlistments.
The governor wrote most personal and abusive letters regarding me to the senators, and then published them.
I do not think it affected Wilson much, because he had been a Whig, a Know-Nothing, and a Free-Soiler, according to the changes of parties, and did not take Abolitionism much to heart; but Mr. Sumner did everything he could do to disturb me and to serve Andrew.
Sumner had plenty of leisure for this sort of thing.
Although he was in the Senate for more than a quarter of a century, ten lines of laws upon the statute books of the United States drawn by him are yet to be found.
There was one thing that affected my recruiting favorably, more than all Governor Andrew's performances did unfavorably.
On the 7th of November, 1861, Commodore Wilkes, with the San Jacinto, captured the Trent, having on board Mason and Slidell, the rebel emissaries to England and France.
The Trent was an English passenger boat,--and of course a mail steamer,--and England was in name neutral.
That is to say, her people were with the North, her government held itself apparently impartial, and her aristocracy and monied class were entirely with the South.
Captain Wilkes treated the Confederate commissioners very fairly and properly; and through his courteous kindness to the passengers of the Trent and the owners of the vessels he committed a mistake in point of law which it was claimed rendered his capture illegal.
This mistake consisted in not bringing in the vessel, so that he might submit his capture to the courts.
He did not apparently know that this was necessary, and, in order not to discommode the considerable number of English passengers by bringing them to the
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
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